Cro Cop vs Pat Barry UFC 115

he UFC is primed to add a matchup between top strikers to the UFC 115 card, as kickboxers Mirko Cro Cop and Pat Barry are likely to be paired up at the June event.

Croatian news site Dnevnik.hr originally reported the pending matchup, citing Cro Cop as a source. Though they have since pulled down the story, MMA Fighting spoke to a source who said the report was accurate. In addition, the matchup was reported by MMA Scraps Radio. Barry is a co-host of the radio show.

Cro Cop won at last weekend's UFC 110, scoring a second-round TKO over late replacement Anthony Perosh. Ironically, Barry had offered to fill in when Cro Cop's original replacement, Ben Rothwell, was forced to withdraw from the matchup.

The UFC was unable to make that matchup, however, as it would have been impossible to clear Barry through the athletic commission flying 8,000 miles to fight on short notice. Now, it appears the fight is likely to go down in Vancouver.

Barry is 5-1 in his MMA career since transitioning from kickboxing, and recently won a battle of strikers when he TKO'd former training partner Antoni Hardonk at UFC 104. In late January, it was reported that Barry would face off with Gilbert Yvel at UFC 115. That pairing was scrapped and Yvel is now likely to take on Rothwell instead.

After beating Perosh, Cro Cop (26-7-2, 1 no contest) was expected to face off with Rothwell, but it appears the UFC will go in a different direction.

This is a perfect fight for CC to be honest. Doesn't have to worry about the takedown so it can be back to his Pride/K1 days. That said, I still think Barry wins but it should still be a good fight.

I disagree. Cro Cop is slow as **** in this point of his career and the last thing he needs is fighting an aggressive, powerful striker. A better matchup for Cro Cop would be a grappler that would be afraid of trading punches. Cro Cop shines against those types of fighters because of his takedown defense. He has only been submitted once in his whole career.

Also, how the **** is not worrying about the takedown being "back to his Pride days"? He fought some of the best grapplers/wrestlers in MMA HW history when he was there and beat everyone except Nog and Fedor.

These days though he has long lost that fire he used to have. He should have retired years ago.